This paper contrasts biomedical and epidemiological approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of disease, and uses Collingwood's "principle of the relativity of causes" to show how different approaches focus on different causal factors reflecting different interests. By distinguishing between the etiology of a disease and an epidemic, the paper argues that, from an epidemiological perspective, poverty is an important causal factor in the African AIDS epidemic and that emphasizing this should not be considered incompatible with recognizing the causal necessity of HIV for the AIDS disease.

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This paper will attempt to show how developments in the philosophy of science have in uenced certain positions in contemporary African philosophy. In like fashion, developmental issues have been in uenced by unstated assumptions about the relationship between traditional and modern beliefs, science and technology, and the relationship between humankind and nature. It is important that philosophers identify and debate issues connected to these assumptions and cultivate as critical a stance towards modern science as towards traditional religion. More often than not, I will argue, the problems suffered by the people of Africa and the Third world are the result, not of traditional, but of modern beliefs and practices.

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